carried their children great distances to food centres. And, of course, there were deaths, thousands of them. Despite the drought, these deaths need not have happened. I knew some of these people … they tumbled wasted bodies into a thousand stony graves – and that’s how it was. Humble, beautiful people brutalised by poverty – individuals lost among so many dead.’ Zeno paused. ‘To be or not to be … that is what life is like for Ethiopia’s rural poor.’
Louise sensed his mood and felt for him.
‘What’s the answer, Zeno?’ Rick asked. ‘Is there an answer?’
‘Education to improve literacy levels, and the desire to change people’s thinking so that famine is not considered inevitable. It’s difficult.’
As the temperature fell each person’s breath floated up into the night sky. Abebe cleared the table and the students retired to their tents. In her sleeping bag, holding her torch, Louise tried to read but found it difficult to concentrate. Carmen was already dozing. Louise thought of the village people and tried to imagine their lives. She was eager to begin writing about them but she drifted to sleep.
A Village below the Bada Ridge
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Abebe was up early and had kettles boiling away. He put cups, plates with injera and jars of mari (honey) on the camp table. ‘Gotta look after you people with all you’re going to do today with Dr Wolde,’ he said to the early risers who were clustering around him. ‘Anyone doesn’t like mari and buna (coffee)?’ He smiled broadly.
The group assembled, some yawning. Abebe measured water and coffee into each cup. They sat chatting and drinking.
‘We’ll leave in about half an hour and take the track down into the valley where we can meet village people,’ Zeno said to Abebe.
Zeno wanted to introduce students to this little-known group of Oromo-speaking villages below the Bada Ridge. They would provide a contrast with the subsisting nomadic people of the Omo Valley region, the final destination on this trip. He hoped the progress in these villages could be adopted elsewhere, a beacon of progress, he thought, like a lighthouse light flickering on, off, on – with a message guiding and telling people what to do and what to avoid.
‘It’ll take a good hour to get to the bottom of the valley. Three of you have already walked in this valley so you can go with Abebe to the market in Asela,’ Zeno said.
Abebe brought a large earthenware water jug and filled the students’ water bottles. Zeno laid his map on the table and the students gathered round. ‘We’ll start our walk from the track head on the edge of the plateau. It’s easy walking from here to the beginning of the descent, but over an hour to the bottom of the valley. It could take longer. It’s not an easy walk, but you’ll see how spectacular it is. I’ll give you fifteen minutes to get ready,’ Zeno said. ‘Make sure your water bottles are full and you’ve packed enough bananas and chocolate and anything else you need to keep going. Bring some warm clothing as we might stay the night in the valley, but don’t worry about sleeping bags. If necessary, villagers will provide you with goatskins and cowhides. You’ll be warm enough.’
Zeno led the party off the edge of their tented plateau site and slowly down the steep gravelly track which wound its way along the valley side. Sometimes they were climbing as their narrow path took the safest route before descending again. Skirting rock outcrops, they saw goats grazing on precipitous slopes. Zeno stopped on a lip of the path with a sheer drop. The valley far below was yellow, brown and purple. He took a step back and asked the students to do the same in order to avoid any rush of vertigo.
The track ahead became broken as they climbed again until they reached slabs of rock and a bend in the track leading down. The early sun was not yet hot, but the students were bathed in sweat. Zeno paused on a flat spur to wait for those at the back. There was just sufficient room for them to stand above the sheer drop and see the tilled land near to a village below.
‘These tracks are the shortest way into the valley. The road we were on yesterday skirts the valley but is well away from the villages. When we get closer to the bottom you will see how, despite its rocky nature, many sides of the valley have been terraced for cultivation. The people use every inch of arable land.’
‘When did the terraces first appear?’ asked Louise.
‘Good question. In this region, probably as far back as the fourteenth century there were terraces here in some form or another or perhaps even earlier. Not exactly these same terraces, of course.’
‘That’s incredible.’
The students stood about staring at the landscape, reluctant to move. The morning light was brighter and the dry air was heating up.
‘Another half hour and we’ll be on the valley floor,’ Zeno said, while turning to see if all the students were safe on the steep incline. Louise walked behind Zeno. He turned again to check the students and caught her eye. ‘You’re doing well,’ he said. He met her gaze and did not avert his eyes.
Finally they walked off the track onto the undulating valley floor. Ahead of them was the first evidence of tilled land. As they approached the settlement of a dozen huts above a dry creek bed, a young woman appeared, carrying a baby. She walked slowly from a hut towards a gwaro (garden). Noticing the approaching party she turned, stared and waved. Zeno waved back. A girl of eight or nine joined her. She was a slight child, thin at ankle and wrist. Her skin was dark brown, her thick black hair curly and cropped, showing the fine structure of her face. Her feet were bare, her dress torn. Despite her thinness, Louise thought she had rarely seen a prettier child. Zeno knew the girl from a year ago. ‘She’s a beautiful child, bright but also subdued,’ said Zeno. ‘She’s interested in going to school but out here, that’s impossible, especially for a girl.’
Louise wished the girl could grow beyond a woman’s narrow, burdened back-breaking life. She hoped the traditional opposition to a girl being educated would soon fall away. The little girl stood close to the young woman with the baby, who gently directed her to pick up a bucket and collect water from the distant stream. Louise was sad as she watched the girl lug her bucket and disappear beyond the gardens. The battered bucket in the girl’s hand seemed like a betrayal of her life.
Zeno introduced the students and, with a welcoming gesture, the young woman, Biftu. invited them to walk around the settlement. She took them alongside the tilled garden on which some ten women were working, mainly weeding and breaking the earth with hoes around their corn plants, leafy vegetables and what looked like bok choy. The women wore brightly-coloured cotton skirts, thin and faded so that the patterns could just be discerned; their skin could be seen through the fabric. To begin with, they ignored the students and continued working. Zeno asked the woman with the baby if her mother was in the village.
She pointed to the track to the village.
Zeno explained to the students that her mother was Kaboue, a respected village elder. ‘She is sharp as a razor,’ he said, ‘and never in a hurry. Everyone agrees she is wise. You will enjoy meeting her.’
After staying for an hour, observing the women working in the gardens, Zeno told Biftu, who was now putting vegetables in a reed basket, that they would walk to the main village to meet her mother. Zeno beckoned to the students and they walked on across rough pasture and broken, sandy land.
Kaboue’s village was on a tributary flood plain another mile away. Her hut was in the centre of the village compound, well above the creek in which there was a trickle of water and a few
